MINNEAPOLIS / ST. PAUL (02/07/2014) —The University of Minnesota Law School’s spring lecture series kicks off with the Irving Younger Professorship in Law lecture by Professor Oren Gross on the use of drones in battlefield zones. The lecture is scheduled for Tuesday, February 11, 4:00 p.m., in Room 25 of Mondale Hall, 229 19th Ave S., Minneapolis.

Drones have become the poster child for America’s continuing fight against terrorism. However, their use is not only fraught with difficulties on the international plane but is also saddled with severe constitutional and legal challenges under U.S. law. In his January 2014 State of the Union speech, President Obama commented, "…I’ve imposed prudent limits on the use of drones, for we will not be safer if people abroad believe we strike within their countries without regard for the consequence."

While drone attacks raise a range of difficult questions that have been, and continue to be, widely discussed by policymakers, scholars and in the general media, relatively little attention has been given to the use by the army of drones to carry out attacks in battlefield zones such as Afghanistan. In his lecture, Professor Gross will challenge the Obama Administration’s position by examining not whether states may have a right to deploy drones into battlespace, but rather whether they may have an obligation, legal or moral, to do so.

Professor Oren Grossis the Irving Younger Professor of Law at the University of Minnesota Law School. He is an internationally recognized expert in the areas of national security law and international law. He holds an LL.B. degree magna cum laude from Tel Aviv University, and LL.M. and S.J.D. degrees from Harvard Law School. Professor Gross joined the University of Minnesota in 2002. Between 1986 and 1991, he served as a senior legal advisory officer in the Israeli Defense Forces’ Judge Advocate Gen­eral’s Corps. Professor Gross’s work has been published extensively. His book (with Professor Ní Aoláin), Law in Times of Crisis: Emer­gency Powers in Theory and Practice, was awarded the prestigious Certificate of Merit for Preeminent Contribution to Cre­ative Scholarship by the American Society of International Law in 2007. His latest book (with Prof. Ní Aoláin), Guantánamo and Beyond: Exceptional Courts and Military Commissions in Comparative and Policy Perspective, was published in 2013.